10. Make a pizza from scratch

Having spent the last few days with a cough and cold I wanted to try a nice simple new thing this week. Inspired by the Bake Off I figured it was time for me to finally make a pizza completely from scratch.

I looked at the recipe on the Bake off website here, and also the BBC Good Food website too. Mainly because I had some passata to use up I went more with the Good Food recipe. 

The dough was stupidly simple to make. 300 grams of flour with a teaspoon of yeast and salt. Mix together, make a small well in the middle and add in warm water and mix again.

Then you have to knead it all together. At first my dough was really sticky but after adding a bit more flour it started to come together.

Because what is life without a bit of competition, Stuart and I were making our own pizzas at the same time. He followed the instructions to the letter, even timing the 10 minutes kneading time.

After the 10 minutes of kneading were done we put our doughs in a bowl, covered and left whilst we made the tomato sauce. Stuart followed the Good Food recipe which used passata, tomato puree, garlic, herbs all mixed together and not heated. I used the same ingredients but heated them gently as I figured this would make the sauce slightly less sour.

The sauce didn't take long, so we went and finished season 4 of Orange is the New Black. When we returned the dough had easily doubled so it was time to shape. Stuart cheated and used a rolling pin (wine bottle) whereas I went for shaping it my hand and tossing, like proper Italians would.

To be honest, Stuart's did look better, so maybe there's something to be said about using a rolling pin rather than flinging it in the air, but I still think my option is more fun.

Then it was a case of adding the sauce and mozzarella. Then both pizzas went in the oven for 10 minutes.

After a bit of Bake Off style watching through the window the pizza were finally done. And here they are. Which do you think looks better? 

Mine...

Or Stuart's?

I guess the proof is in the testing. I may have gone a bit overboard with the cheese, but can you really ever have too much cheese? Stuart's base was thinner and crispier but I'm confident in saying my sauce was tastier. Overall this was super simple, and we'll definitely make it again - and I'm looking forward to trying different toppings too.